U.S. SUBSIDY PLAN

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27375, 14 June 1954, Page 9

U.S. SUBSIDY PLAN

Call For Aid To Farmers (Rec. 10 p.m.) WASHINGTON, June 12. The Agriculture Committee of the House of Representatives voted today to authorise direct Government subsidies to dairy producers in a move to keep farmers’ incomes up and retail butter prices down in the United States.

Authority for the agricultural department to use the new subsidy plan for two years, beginning on September 9, was included, in a six-point programme for. disposing of dairy surpluses. The Secretary of Agriculture (Mr Ezra Benson) had asked the committee to consider the plan, but did not promise to use it. Meanwhile, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House voted to require that 500,000,000 dollars of the Administration’s 3,500,000,000 foreign aid'programme be made up of American farm surpluses. , It also approved as part of the Foreign Aid Bill, an additional 1,300,000,000 dollars farm surplus disposal programme over a three-year period. The Agriculture Committee had already a similar programme. Under the present price-support programme, the Government bv dairy

Juys . products from processors if they cannot be sold on the open market at support level prices. This has led to huge surplus stockpiles. It also tends to keep retail prices up. Under the subsidy plan the Government would pay processors the difference between the support price and the market price. This would permit the prices of butter, cheese and other dairy products to seek their own level.